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Top brass shuffled again as army commander becomes military's second-in-command

by The Canadian Press

Posted Jul 12, 2019 10:52 am PDT

Canadian Army Lt.-Gen. Jean-Marc Lanthier, left, addresses Ukrainian soldiers as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, right, stands by during military drills in base Honcharivske, Chernihiv region, Ukraine, Monday, Dec. 3, 2018. The military's top ranks are being shuffled again following the surprise resignation this week of the military's second-in-command. Defence officials say Lanthier is being tapped to be the new vice-chief of defence staff, the fifth officer to serve in that position since 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Efrem Lukatsky

OTTAWA — The Canadian Forces’ top brass is being shuffled again following the surprise resignation this week of the military’s second-in-command.

Canadian Army commander Lt.-Gen. Jean-Marc Lanthier is being tapped to be the new vice-chief of defence staff, the fifth officer to serve in that position since 2016.

He takes over from Lt.-Gen. Paul Wynnyk, who linked his resignation Tuesday to an aborted attempt to reinstate Vice-Admiral Mark Norman into the position.

Norman was suspended as vice-chief in January 2017 and later charged with breach-of-trust for allegedly leaking government secrets before the case was dropped in May.

While Norman said at the time that he wanted to return to his former position, he instead agreed to a settlement with the government and has since retired.

Lanthier’s move is only one several resulting from Wynnyk’s resignation, with Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre taking over as army commander and Rear Admiral Haydn Edmundson moving up to take over from Eyre as the military’s top human-resources officer.